PCT's production, under the leadership of director PETER NATALE and choreographer DANA MARGULIES, has moments of brilliance, creativity, and true heart.  The night that I attended was one of those legendary nights in the musical theatre where the female lead was unexpectedly taken ill, and there were several changes in the casting.

“Words. Words. They’re all we have to go on!”

The sketch comedy troupe, THE PUSHERS, with their homegrown brand of "black comedy," has brought to Nofolk's 40th Street Stage and thereby Hampton Roads the element of risk...

In writing its own material, the troupe tackles risky topics ranging from local and national politics to racial stereotypes and even familiar childhood memories, evoking audience response from laughter to moans of disgust.

The Little Theatre of Virginia Beach production of Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring is a mighty undertaking. The script calls for sharp delivery and popping blocking. To fully appreciate the vision of Kesselring, the production needs to be something akin to a three-ring circus. There is so much going on that if not presented as a symphony of sound and motion, the experience becomes noise and awkwardness. The symphony is not performing in Virginia Beach.

1964. For those of us who were around back then the year brings many things to mind. The first year of the Johnson administration after the death of JFK, the Beatles on Ed Sullivan bringing about the era of the “British Invasion,” and an election year where Barry Goldwater was associated with nuclear war in a political commercial. And for the intimate theatre of The Williamsburg Players, 1964 also happens to be the setting for the Bernard Slade murder mystery, “An Act of the Imagination.” We’re placed in England, Hampstead to be specific just outside London, in an old Manor House where the mystery writer, Arthur Putnam, has just finished his latest work. The (alleged) action of the play starts at that point.

American History, as taught to the K-12 set, is arguably in need of a soundtrack, as well as faculty skillful enough, and with enough energy, to bring it back to life in the retelling. We would all be aghast if, in some remote future, the efforts of our own modern age were reduced to two dates and a hyphen, merely because history was viewed only in terms of really grandiose accomplishments. Yet these days, this is more or less what people absorb from what went before. I’m reminded of Robin Williams’ portrayal of a teacher in the film “Dead Poet’s Society”, unwilling to bend to the same boring repartee in order to introduce his students to serious literature. Hurrah for the characters like that! And huzzah for shows like “1776”, now being offered by Peninsula Community Theatre.